


a warm and common smile

by MiniNephthys



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fluff, Gift Fic, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27672394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniNephthys/pseuds/MiniNephthys
Summary: Claude is not like any noble Dimitri has ever known.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 43





	a warm and common smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mother_hearted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mother_hearted/gifts).



> Happy birthday!!

Claude is not like any noble Dimitri has ever known.

Dimitri has known plenty of nobles, barons and dukes of all kinds. He’s grown up surrounded by them and seen the ways that their duty shapes the people they become. But he can’t think of any nobles even remotely like Claude.

There are those who embrace the expectations put upon them, like Ingrid. Those who strive to fulfill the ideal of the dutiful lord, putting their people and their family before themselves. Claude’s as far from that as you can get, of course. Dimitri’s never had an expectation that Claude didn’t immediately shatter.

There are those who rebel against the role they’re meant to play, like Sylvain. But Claude isn’t like that either. He plays ‘the scheming scoundrel’ as well as Sylvain plays ‘the shallow skirt-chaser’, but Dimitri likes to think he knows Sylvain’s act well enough to tell when it’s coming from a place of bitterness. Claude is either a much better actor or much less angry at the world.

Even people who claim not to care about things like nobility, like Felix, find it hard to shake off what’s been taught to them from birth. Dimitri knows that if he were not a prince, with a duty to rule with wisdom and - above all else - with calm, Felix would be less frustrated with him. Claude treats nobility like a tool: useful in the right scenario, but not more important than any other facet of a person’s life.

He is fascinating.

For once, neither the future nor the past factors into Dimitri’s mind. He knows building good relations with the Alliance is important, but that’s not why he goes out of his way to approach Claude. He knows he must constantly be on guard for sabotage, but that’s not why his attention is always caught by whatever shenanigans Claude has gotten up to.

He just… likes him. That’s all.


End file.
